Global Dairy Trade (GDT) has today (Tuesday, June 13) announced that a Belgian processor is set to join the GDT trading events.
Located in the Ardennes in the southeast of Belgium, Solarec has 58 years’ experience in the milk sector, and processes more than 1.5 billion litres of milk each year.
The processor is 100% owned by five cooperatives and operates two production sites supplied by over 2,100 farmers.
Each year, Solarec produces 110,000t of milk powder, 50,000t of butter, and 190 million litres of UHT milk which is sold in 80 countries in all five continents.
The company recently added mozzarella to its product range, with a potential annual production of 32,000t.
GDT
Solarec will offer a range of dairy ingredients for at GDT auctions including: Butter; skim milk powder (SMP); whole milk powder (WMP); and mozzarella.
“Joining GDT allows us to obtain credible reference prices for our products on an efficient and reliable platform,” Louis Ska, Solarec managing director, said.
“It also provides us with access to a worldwide pool of active buyers. This fits well with our strategic plan and the aspirations of our shareholders.”
Global Dairy Trade’s managing director in Europe, Shaun McCauley, said he was pleased that Solarec will use the GDT to expand its business and gain access to new customers around the world.
“Solarec will benefit from enhancements to the GDT platform designed to better meet the needs of European participants.
“These enhancements will not only benefit Solarec, but also the broader European dairy industry, as they will facilitate increased price transparency for a wide range of core European dairy ingredients to be offered on our world-leading price discovery platform,” McCauley said.
In recent months it was announced that two US dairy processors will offer SMP for sale on the GDT platform: Valley Milk and Darigold, Inc.
Valley Milk operates a state-of-the-art milk processing facility on a 30ac site at Turlock, California, supplied by 18 family owned dairy farms.
Darigold, Inc, owned by over 350 dairy farmers in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, processes over 4.5 billion kilograms of milk solids at 11 plants annually,